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If you haven't been hearing a good bit about this book, The Three Trillion Dollar WAR — The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, by Joeseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, you need to.
Stiglitz and Bilmes do NOT discuss the $3 Trillion missing from the Pentagon that Donald "Duck and Weave" & "I don't know what I don't know" Rumsfeld announced at a press conference, propitiously timed for one day before 9/11/2001. (I assume it was scheduled for that day because the day of the so-called "attack" was known in advance. This will, sooner than later, I hope, be proven to have been the case.)
Also, the current issue of Atlantic Magazine has an article that asserts Rummy actually reduced the unaccounted for, inappropriately assigned, etc., etc., bucks back down into the millions. This from the July/August issue of Atlantic Monthly by Robert D. Kaplan, an Atlantic national correspondent, What Rumsfeld Got Right:
Regarding management, Rumsfeld was at times his own worst enemy, distracting rather than concentrating the bureaucracy with his famed notes, or “snowflakes.”
But Rumsfeld did after a fashion attend to the books, even if massive cost overruns and a ballooning defense budget were the hallmarks of his tenure. According to his comptroller, Dov S. Zakheim, currently a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, Rumsfeld reduced the more than $3 trillion of improperly recorded, unaudited Pentagon transactions to hundreds of billions.
He created a defense business board, and reformed the national-security personnel system to take into account considerations of merit. Rumsfeld is often spoken of in the same negative breath as Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara. Zakheim and others with whom I spoke made a positive association: McNamara failed on Vietnam, but he succeeded in devising a planning, program-ming, and budgeting system that lasted for 40 years. Time will tell whether Rumsfeld accomplished something similar.
Nonetheless, I think that the $3 trillion (or the "hundreds of billions" of bucks) constitutes a potential source of funds to buy and install the explosives for 9/11 as well as the Afghan adventure and Operation IOA, the Invasion Of Iraq, so my view is that the Iraq misadventure could be said to be in the realm of $5 or $6 trillion.
As an aside, on the topic of explosives required for 9/11, to take out both WTC Towers #1 and #2, that exploded and collapsed mid-morning of 9/11/2001, and to take out WTC #7, the 47-story steel-framed high-rise that imploded at about 5:20 p.m. on 9/11, here's what I calculated — a back-of-the-envelope sort of calculation — for the number of distinct ordnance/demolitions items required.
To demolish all three buildings, I figure, something like a grand total of 42,493 separate devices, probably with radio-controlled detonators, would have been required. See a breakout of my calculations here.
I have no idea what these munitions and the computer(s) and communication gear and software to trigger the explosives cost, but I doubt that it was cheap. Plus payments to the men (and maybe women?) who did the installations, probably riding up and down on the tops of elevator cars, a la Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story II, doing the installation of the two thermate cutter charges on each side of the 47 vertical support columns at each building's core, on every other floor, cutter charges along the exterior, facade columns, and probably putting "cement powderers" at the points of the compass inside the towers' core on every floor. Not to forget WTC #7, the Salomon Building, with 47 stories, 25 core columns, etc.
By the way, if you'll take a look at the top of elevator cars that you can see in and around your municipalities — in elevators that have glass sides on the shafts — you'll probably notice a big three-button switch (for UP, DOWN and STOP). This switch lets someone, usually an elevator repair person, control the movement of the cab from the roof of the car. Because there was complete access to the WTC #1, 2 & 7 core columns from the elevator shafts, we're told, imagine how easy it would have been for "elevator service personnel" to work, unseen, atop those elevator cars, in broad daylight, setting up the demolition explosives. A trip to the sub-basement to pick up the explosives materiel, and back up, up, up you go.
But what I intended to discuss was this paragraph from page 15 of Stiglitz' and Bilmes' book:
In America, corruption takes on a more nuanced form than it does elsewhere. Payoffs typically do not take the form of direct bribes, but of campaign contributions to both parties. From 1998 to 2003, Halliburton's contributions to the Republican Party totaled $1,146,248, and $55,650 went to the Democratic Party. Halliburton received at least $19.3 billion in lucrative single-source contracts.
Excess costs to the government are reflected in excess profits to the defense contractors, who have been (along with the oil companies) the only real winners in this war. Halliburton's stock price has increased — by 229 percent since the war began [one wonders what effect that increase has had on Cheney's "sequestered" deferred salary and other emoluments and perquisites. ed. Someone should ask our Acting President about this, even though he may reply, as he did to Sen. Pat Leahy, as they passed one another in the well of the Senate, "Go f**k yourself!"], exceeding even the gains by other defense firms, such as General Dynamics (134 percent), Raytheon (117 percent), Lockheed Martin (105 percent), and Northrop Grumman (78 percent).
And I believe they were also cost-PLUS contracts, so there was absolutely ZERO risk for Halliburton; and the more they spend, destroy or waste, the greater their profits. There are many anecdotes about this waste in various DVDs and YouTube pieces: the wrong computers are delivered; Halliburton (or [Kellog], Brown & Root) bulldozes them into a big ditch and sets them afire; there's no replacement air filter, or spare tire, on a truck — KBR blows the truck up; in the mess hall(s), KBR folks set out stacks of flimsy plastic plates. Soldiers use two to support their helpings of food. But KBR charges the $30 or so per meal by the plate, and includes the "doubled up" plates and the UNUSED plates.
How much of that overcharging could have gone to build MRAPS (the high-riding, V-bottomed armored personnel carriers that deflect mines and roadside bombs and save soldiers' lives), unlike the flat-bottomed, flat-sided deathtraps that were merely jeep replacements called, following the M38 & M38A1 GP (for "general purpose", pronounced "jeep") of WWII, then the Military Utility Tactical Truck, or MUTT, the M151 Ford jeep that could be flipped over at 5 mph in the motor pool, then the High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle, or the M998 HmmWhee! The HMMWV was designed primarily for personnel and light cargo transport behind front lines. Like the previous Jeep, the basic HMMWV has no armor or protection against NBC,* CBS, ABC, CNN or Murdoch Video (a k a FBFWM, or Flea-Bitten-Fox-With-Mange).
This set of figures reminded me of a proposal I'd made back in my law-school days: First, calculate the difference between the amount of campaign contributions the military-industrial-legislative-intelligence agencies complex pays to congressional and presidential campaigns compared to the benefit they receive for their "political investments", or ROPI (return on political investment), as I first saw in Newsweek magazine. Then tax 100% of it that's over, say, 18% ROPI. A real "windfall ROPI tax." And I've heard that an 18% return is a decent number for almost any legitimate business.
When there is a HUGE difference, it is clear that our elected officials don't have a clue about how to run a business or get their fair share of the profits. In other words, Members of Congress, Presidential candidates — and no doubt state and municipal officials too, but on a much smaller scale — are selling themselves on the cheap. They get $1 million, and give $10 BILLION. Chump-change.
In the Halliburton example, Cheney's company "invests" $1,201,898 (combining campaign contributions to both parties) and gets a "return" of $19,300,000,000.
Soooo, if I've gotten my arithmetic straight, you subtract the original amount, $1.2 million, from the "return" amount, or $19.3 Billion, and get $19,298,798,102, or the net increase, right? Then you divide the $1.2 million by the amount of the net increase, or $19.2 million, and multiply by 100 to get the percent increase.
And that comes to 1,605,694%. A 1.6 MILLION percent ROPI? Can that be? Please double-check the arithmetic for me on this. I've gone over and over it and still can't believe it. Yet when I multiply the contribution of $1.2 million by 1,605,694% and add back the original investment, I come up with the amount of the contracts again, $1.93 billion.
All I can say is, if I've done the arithmetic correctly and that's the ROPI, it is beyond beyond beyond obscene. If you were a shareholder, like Acting President Cheney, for instance, how swee-eet it is!
The book is, among other things, a testimonial to the unabashed skills of our Unitary Liar-In-Chief and his henchmen and henchwoman (well, henchwomen, because there is a handful of them in the Senate and House of Representatives, along with the rest of the complicit bunch of 535 or so, give or take a couple honorable men (I'll have to check to find out whether any of the females in that 535 actually voted against "the use of appropriate force" in invading Iraq).
Of course there was NO level of force appropriate for the 11 years of illegal blockade against the people of Iraq, the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq and the subsequent five-plus years of illegal occupation that continues today. It was an illegal war of aggression from the get-go. Your grandchildren and mine will live their lives at a standard comensurate with that of the majority of the world.
Think of the they way the men of the Illegal Immigration from Mexico live in this country: riding bicycles or walking or taking public transportation to work and do their essential living errands; sleeping 10 to 20 on the floor, in a room with wall-to-wall carpet if they're lucky. Their farms were priced out of the corn-raising business by "free subsidized trade" to the benefit of the US Agribusiness-legislative-executive complex, so they came to America. Our grandchildren will be trying to book passage on tramp steamers to get to India, China and Indonesia.
How often have you heard the phrase, "A rising tide floats all boats"? Good as far as it goes. For those boats that are in the water, not in dry dock. And of course, 12 hours later, when the tide goes out, all boats are lowered, leaving many mired in the muck, unusable til the tide comes in again. But economies aren't REALLY subject to the pull of the Gamblers' Moon.
The correct simile is "Water seeks its own level." That is, when you fill a long, long hose with water and raise the ends, the height of the water at one end will be the same height as at the other end. So think Hanoi, Illinois or Oaxaca, Iowa.
So what does $3 Trillion or $5 Trillion have to do with anything? Literally, not much. That is, most Americans are going to be left with not much in pretty short order. Our "top 0.01%" of the population (our corporate rapists and "capitalist" greedsters (remember, though, that when their unbridled greed drives them into the swamp, they expect the the bottom 90% of the citizenry to bail them out. So they can contribute to election campaigns for another day, of course. We all pay the price, but get none of the benefit) will be doing quite well, as ever in recent days. In fact, the ... well, I'm digressing.
What was my idea about these obscene "returns on political investment"? There are two possibilities:
- Tax them as windfall profits, or
- Insist that our legislators hike their prices by at least four orders of magnitude.
I don't really find anything wrong about our politicians selling themselves to the highest bidder. It is so ingrained a practice that how would our government run without it?
But I want to know what the high bidder is getting for his investment. So, along with item #2, I propose that the "findings" section of each piece of legislation must contain a list of who, and by how much, benefits (that old qui bono thing) from their purchases or "investments."
And if it's not quite possible to make a direct link when the legislation, rules, regulations, presidential "findings" or "decisions" are made, the public internet log must be updated within 24 hours. Plus perhaps a 10-year, non-pardonable jail term to help signify that the game is not tiddlywinks.
As for item #1 above, it would be OK with me if we let the political investments get maybe a 28% ROPI and tax the balance at 100%. That is, confiscate it.
Of course, the remedy I prefer is to set aside a handful of communications channels (broadcast, cable, satellite) for free campaign ads, all day long, all year long.
The airwaves are supposed to "belong to the people," so let's demand that we get some public utility out of them. And if broadcasters, etc., DO want to accept campaign ads, they can still do so, BUT they cannot charge for them and they must seek out any and all challengers for the seat (or subject) in question, and run their campaign ads, free, in the adjacent time slots. The order of broadcast could be determined by lot, rock-paper-scissors, drawing straws, whatever. In other words, there should be absolutely NO incentive for commercial broadcasters -- those who "rent" their frequencies from We the People -- to run campaign commercials.
Licensed commercial broadcasters, etc., would also have to manage the standalone campaign ad channels in their ADI (area of dominant influence) or customer base, as a public service condition of their licenses.
So that's it; how to get the money out of Congress, out of the election process, or at worst, how to confiscate it.
Pls share your thoughts w/ me on this matter, if you'd be so kind. TIA.
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* Actually, NBC, in the lexicon of the military-industrial-legislative-spy complex, NBC is a TLA for nuclear, biological & chemical weapons. Reminds me: What ever happened to the anthrax attack? I guess it petered out after the anthrax was traced back to Ft. Detrick, Md. Another one of those "Ooops, they've traced it back to our own government; don't wanna see, think or hear about that, no siree Bobster."
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